Dear fellow human being, young or old, inside or outside education, we need your help.

During the most recent election campaigns, education was a hot topic. At last. It had been a while since this sector made the news every single day. Other themes usually take precedence and are considered to have greater news value. But is that actually true? Could schools and the developments taking place inside them occupy a larger place in the media? After all, our children spend a great deal of their time there, and the experience they gain there has a considerable impact on the rest of their lives. That is why I find it a pity that education is an underestimated and insufficiently supported sector. We should be doing everything we can to make sure that schools are successful and that they can keep up with the latest developments. By that I do not only mean technological or digital developments, but also the changes in the learning needs and the consciousness of our children and young people. When are we finally going to give a real answer to that?

The problems schools wrestle with are far from small. Yet I cannot shake the impression that they are not new, but that they come back year after year. When I look back from my somewhat advanced age to my early years in education, I was already hearing the very same complaints. And complaining is something we are good at. Does that produce satisfying results? What would it be like if we focused on solutions, on ways of seeing that make a new wind blow, and on creations that open up roads we can barely imagine today? What would it be like if we appreciated education for what it has brought forth and reinvented it at the same time?

I believe that we could then create schools that exceed our wildest expectations, schools that implement forms of education which bring out potential all by themselves, schools our pupils love going to and where teachers are given a new role. I have been doing my bit for years through training courses that offer a different view on education. But I am not alone. And my work on its own is not enough. We need other frontrunners with whom we can enter into a broad partnership.
I am certain that there are plenty of educational visionaries walking around in Flanders and the Netherlands whose ideas are already being put into practice in a school, or who are looking for a platform to make their ideas known. It is my great dream to bring these visionaries together and to find out which contributions we can make TOGETHER for the education we are longing for. If we have to wait for political decisions, we will be waiting a long time yet. Hence this initiative.

SO THIS IS A CALL! I NEED YOUR HELP!
I will spread my question through as many social media channels as possible in order to get as much response as possible, both from Flanders and from the Netherlands. I could really use your help here to spread my call within your network.
What I am not looking for is a list of everything that is going wrong. What I am looking for are the concrete, creative, out of the box ideas to lift education to the next level. Are you joining in?

Question: SCHOOLS AT THE TOP

• Which schools are implementing a completely new way of working, concept, collaboration, and so on…? Completely new means no variation on the familiar ways of seeing and working.
• Which solutions do you propose at the level of policy, the school, the teachers, the subjects, the study programmes, pupil participation, working methods, school organisation, and so on… Solutions that are not in line with what already exists.
• What are you already doing concretely?
• How do you see your concept developing further?
• How does it differ from the way we deal with school and learning now?
• What does ideal education look like?
• What would the design of your ideal school be?
• How can children and young people be truly happy at school?
• How can we start learning differently?
• Where will we stand twenty years from now?
• Which new subjects do we need?
• And completely different ideas as well….

Does this speak to you? Then share your vision.
Do you know someone with remarkable ideas? Let them know about my question.
Do not forget to add your contact details.

Depending on the number of responses, we will set up a platform that can give a broad impulse to the educational landscape. I am hoping for thousands of responses. Are you joining in?

Thank you so very much in advance.

Hilde Van Bulck*, who has a big heart for education. All her life.

• Was active in education for twenty-five years as a teacher, coordinator, head teacher, and more.
• Has been giving training courses for years from a vision of being-present, love and energetic consciousness.
• Supports educational themes through educational constellations